Old Fashioned Jam Cake {Spice Cake}

The recipe for this cake was passed down from my Great Grandmother, to my Grandmother, to my Mother, and to me. It is a moist, delicious, spice cake. Very rich. It’s a pretty strict family tradition to always have Old Fashioned Jam Cake during the Holidays. I make it every year in the couple of days leading-up and we have it for dessert instead of pecan or pumpkin pie (because, you know, we did just have those at Thanksgiving!).

Now, a lot of time, since our family gatherings are a little smaller than they were in the past, I make two single-layer cakes and put one layer in the freezer to save for a few days. Then we have a second cake waiting for us when we demolish the first. LOL! I recommend doing that, too, if you’re not having a large gathering. It’s just a really rich cake, so you want to do small slices (unless you listen to my daughter, then you just need to set the whole cake in front of her and let her alone–she loves it). So, it can serve a lot of people with just one layer. However, if you’ve got a lot of people coming…well, you can make thinner slices from two layers. You get it, right?

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And, if you don’t have a Christmas Tree cutout handy (because who does?!), I’ve got you covered. You can download the JPG here or the PDF here. You’ll notice that I added a stump (was kind of unintentional–but I liked it) and I cut off the star (I accidentally snipped one too many times…big mess). So, you can do whatever, you just need something to lay over the cake while you dust with powdered sugar. You can use this one or just cut one out of wax paper. Your choice. I even did a snowflake one year from wax paper that was really cool. But, I’ve never been able to replicate the look, so a tree it is!